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Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

We have the WIPP (waste isolation pilot plant) here in Carlsbad, NM. While I'm not understanding the type of clearance needed at whatever facility you were turned down at, I'm assuming it is a security thing? A thorough background and security clearance to work in a government controlled environment dealing with nuclear reactor, waste, etc.? The facility that refused you clearance should be able to tell you where to go and what is required.
The SS welding program here at the University requires a weld made with the nuclear code for SS be documented a minimum of every six months in order to keep your certification for the proceedure. In order to receive certification in the first place requires passing a program taught at the university learning the proceedures used to produce, repair equipment used at the LOCAL facility. Other than that, I can't answer your question. This is dated, too, as I haven't been involved with it for several years now.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.
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Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

Do you mean clearance or certification? Usually, the government pays for the clearance investigations. It takes at least 3 months if you have been living clean. If you have any drug history you might have to say forget it. If you have a lot of traffic tickets, it can take a year of so to get one. They used to cost as much as $85K for some people. They are required at some defense contractors who deal in navy nuke stuff. There are two levels of clearance DOE "L" (confidential) and DOE "Q" (secret). The government probably won't let someone apply until they have a specific job offer in hand. Since people don't want to sit around and wait to start a new job, many companies now try to hire people who have existing clearances. I had on once when I worked on navy nuke weldiing processes. The people who hired me brought me in uncleared and paid me to basically do nothing until I got my clearance, and it took me 3 months to get cleared. A good way to get one otherwise would be to join the navy and work as a reactor repair weldor. Then when you exit the navy would would be qualified for civillian DOE cleared jobs.

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

Somebody's jerking your chain. You don't go get your own background check the employer does. At least that's the way it's done at the nuclear plants of my employer. MikeD74T

Yes. I agree and that is what I tried to say with my long confusing post.

But what his job lead may have wanted is someone who had a previous clearance. Once you get them they are easy to reactivate. And then too there is probably a period of time where they are still good after terminating employment you were once cleared for.

I know mine expired shortly after leaving the navy nuke work.

And yes, the employer takes care of it. But in my case that just meant handing me all the government paperwork to fill out. Expect a lot of invasion of privacy. If that is not a concern, it could lead to some of the best possible jobs in industry. I know mine was probably the best job of my entire career.

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

what happened was I didn't have security clearance for nuclear plants.They gave the job to guys that did already have security clearnce.I have had clearance at navy ship yards and have worked at plants that built military items, I just have never worked in a nuke plant"yet" and the guy that was doing the hireing said that if there was more time for all the background checks to get done then that would be something differant. he did say he was going to keep in touch and see what he can do to help but I was hoping to try and do it on my own so I didn't run into this issue again.

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

Usually they hire guys who have been badged within the last 12 months first. If they need more guys then they will bring in new guys. It's all about saving time and money on background checks. I've been working nukes for over a year now and on my first one it took about two weeks to get badged and pass all the NANTEL stuff to get in. Just got back on an outage last month and since I held a badge within the last 12 months it only took me 2 days to get back in the plant.

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

You can't do/have the check done on your own. A rule to get the "red badge" which is unescorted access, is that you have to have a legitimate reason to be in the plant. Normally when you are hired on, they (plant owner) run you throught the background check, psychological testing, piss test and all the training you have to go through. If you are going in as a contractor same applies and yes for cost reasons the would likely go with some one who is already red badged. Perhaps you could talk to your contact in the plant and ask to do a short duration job under a "yellow badge" this would require that you are escorted at all times inside the protected area of the plant. But it could help get your foot in the door maybe.
Thinking about it alittle more another option would to be to try to get on during a big outage at the Nuke. Usually the company will gear-up to run alot of people through the paces to get them there clearance.

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

ddog, You may not want to hear this but the majority of temp craft workers that come into our nuclear power plant are brought in via union affiliations. They are members of the reigning local, travelers, or have a "permit" for a single job. Clearance applications start at the union hall. Security checks can easily take 3 months. Others come as vendor employees.
My personal opinion is that this is less about your trustworthyness than about maintaining a huge bureaucracy -Homeland Security.
Short story - I was called at home by a clearance company & requested to feed info about a vendors employee to a third party so the clearance company could call the third party back for the info. When I reported this to my employee alligations group the vendor withdrew it's clearance request & their employee was terminated. This employee would have passed any legitimate clearance challange but the vendor didn't want to make waves ??? I find the NRC to be equally not credible.
We've even had long term employees that through administrative mistakes had their badge pulled & it took a month to get them back into the plant. Any badged employee or vendor must enter the "protected area" at once every 30 days or their access is suspended. .
If they want you to work for them they'll provide the clearance, keep trying. MikeD74T

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

Originally Posted by MikeD74T

If they want you to work for them they'll provide the clearance, keep trying. MikeD74T

I was getting ready to type a whole bunch of stuff, but Mike just covered it. Keep poking at the nuke plant. My plant is always in a state of flux in terms of new projects. You could even try getting a job as a decon worker (clean up person) for a while. You will have your foot in the door in terms of badging.
Keep your name at the top of the hiring guy's pile. It really is a choice of someone whether to bring someone in or not. At some point when things are slow, the hiring buy might just say "come on in and lets run you through and see what we've got on the other side..." I've seen it happen here anyway.

Re: Nuclear clearance how does one get this?

I just recently got L cleared, it takes about three months. Most nuke plants tend to hire people that are already cleared, if they have that option. As Mike and Gary said though, keep poking around though, once you get your foot in the door you can move around to different trades in the plant.